Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Sometimes you've got a great picture but the background is busy and takes away the focus from your subject. In that case you can use this tool in Photoshop to remove the unwanted 'objects' in the background.I started with this picture:

(from pixabay.com)

It's a nice picture of a running lady, but there is so much happening so much in the background that the focus in this image is not on the subject. In sports it's so much better (in most cases) to have a clean background.

So to remove the unwanted 'objects' in the background I used two tools:

Spot Healing Brush Tool (J): Paint over an area and Photoshop will try to repair this section.

Clone Stamp tool: Clone a piece and paint over the area you want to replace.

But you can also use:

Healing brush tool: Same as the Spot Healing Brush Tool, but you have to select a reference point.

Patch tool: Select an area and drag the selection over an area you want to generate a fill from.

Content aware fill: Select an area with your Lasso Tool and use Content Aware fill.

Here you can find all the details of the retouch and repair functionality in Photoshop.

I began with the person all the way on the right. I added a new (empty layer) and painted over it with the Spot Healing brush tool. It did a pretty good job, but to complete it, I used the Clone stamp to make the edges smoother.

Then I removed the people in the background the same way. I did it one more time with the people just behind the running lady. And there you have it, the intermediate result.

Next step is to remove the shadows behind the lady. Whilst I was at it, I also removed the building on the left side. And all with the Spot Healing Brush and the Clone Stamp Tool.

And this is my final result. A much cleaner image with full focus on the smiley running lady:

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Sometimes you just want the sky in your image to be a bit more... well I guess exciting is the word I'm looking for. Even though a nice blue sky is a nice blue sky, in a picture it usually works better with a bit more going on in the sky. And let me tell you: replacing a sky is very easy in Photoshop.

1. Select the sky you want to replace2. Invert the selection (Select > Inverse3. Put the selection on his own Layer Ctrl or Cmd J4. Drag the new sky over the image and make it fit using Ctrl or Cmd T5. Drag the new sky under the layer of step 3

In this case I added some reflections of the clouds into the sky. I made the top of the sky a little darker and lightened up the photo with a Levels adjustment layer.

And voila: this is the end result: I think replacing the sky made the picture a whole lot more interesting.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

The 'new' select and mask in Photoshop works pretty well. I saw two clips which I think did a great job explaining the new select and mask possibilities in Photoshop (the old refine edge functionality):

These two videos are very instructive. I had a go at it myself and let me tell you: it really works very well!

I began with this 2 pictures:

Then you move the picture with the girl onto the streets of New York.

Select the girl with the quick selection tool (W) and drag the transparency slider to the right.

So there you have it: in a couple of minutes you can change the background of the image. It's that simple!

Monday, September 19, 2016

This is a short blog about the infamous clarity slider in Lightroom. It's a good thing to know how to use the clarity slider (or Camera Raw in Photoshop) with portraits.There's just one golden rule, namely: women need less clarity then men. Don't ask me why, just take my word for it. So when editing portrait pictures of men increase the clarity and for women do exactly the opposite: decrease the clarity. Let me show you two examples:

I guess for a woman, we're very much used to a soft skin. Whereas for men it's accepted to see more details of his skin.

Then again, in some cases you can ofcourse also decrease the clarity in a portrait of a man. Just to create another atmosphere. But let me tell you that if you do it the other way around: increase the clarity in a woman's portrait, the subject of your portrait might not be too pleased. Have a go and try it out on different portraits.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

You probably know by now that I love learning about Photoshop from other photographers. What's better than to learn from the experts themselves? There's so many great tutorials out there on the web and I try to select interesting ones to share them with you. Today I watched this clip and learned some new things.

And ofcourse I had to give it a go myself! I find the trickiest part is to use the pentool. More on that in this clip from Phlearn